"I think this is another opportunity for us to help with access, especially in rural Iowa, and to give more choices when it comes to family planning," Reynolds told the Des Moines Register in a follow-up interview. "I think this is the direction we should go. I think by eliminating some of the barriers and making it available through a pharmacist, it will help reduce the rate of unintended pregnancies and abortions."

The governor is in a tight race with Hubbell, a former Planned Parenthood board member who has made his support of legal abortion and women's reproductive health care central to his campaign.

"I am an unabashed supporter of Roe v. Wade and I have been for a long time," Hubbell said during the Sioux City debate, drawing the night's only round of applause from the audience.

The birth-control policy the governor is now proposing may be designed to blunt that appeal, particularly among Iowans who oppose the abortion limits she has backed.

“It’s no coincidence that Gov. Reynolds waited until the final days of the campaign to make this announcement. This is politics and hypocrisy at its finest," Senate Democratic Leader Janet Petersen, of Des Moines, said in a statement.

"Senate Democrats passed legislation in 2016 that authorized pharmacists to prescribe and dispense oral contraceptives. As she knows, not a single Senate Republican voted for this legislation and House Republicans leaders killed it," she said.

Reynolds noted that she signed a bill this year that allows UnityPoint Health clinics that don't provide abortions to resume participation in the family planning program. The entire UnityPoint system was previously barred from the program because some of the system's hospitals provide a few abortions.

She said that change, along with over-the-counter birth control access, could bolster the system and increase access.

"It’s not a one-and-done, and we always need to look at the system and look at barriers and opportunities to make it better," she said.

Reynolds said that, if elected, she would begin work with the Legislature in January to draft a bill.

Only a handful of other states allow pharmacists to prescribe birth control over-the-counter.

Utah's plan, which took effect earlier this year, requires women to fill out a form assessing their risks of taking birth control before receiving it over the counter from a pharmacist. They are also required to check in with a physician every two years to continue receiving contraception.